Based on the famous comic book series by Ma Wing Shing, "The Storm Riders" (Fung Wan, literally means Wind & Cloud) was the most highly anticipated Hong Kong movie in 1998. Whether it delivered or not is a strictly personal opinion, but it's a good eyecandy if not anything else.
Lord Conquer wants to conquer the rest of the martial arts world. Mud Buddha, who is a prophet, tells Lord Conquer that Wind & Cloud will bring him success (that was only half of the prophecy. The other half was that they will also bring his downfall). Lord Conquer, in order to acquire the two children named in the prophecy, kills their parents and raises them as his disciples.
Wind & Cloud grow up to be quite powerful. They do all the dirty work for Lord Conquer. Wind is bland, while Cloud is unpredictable and moody most of the time. They are both in love with Charity, Lord Conquer's one and only daughter. Charity seems to think that she can have both men, a concept so appalling that I'm not sure if she really is naive enough to believe that or is a highly manipulative slut.
Lord Conquer extracts the second half of the prophecy from Mud Buddha and decides to get rid of Wind & Cloud by having them fight against each other for Charity. Unfortunately (fortunately for me, the irritated viewer), he accidentally ends up killing Charity, his own daughter, instead. Mud Buddha tells Wind that the only way they can win against Lord Conquer is to combine their powers...
Other movies based on Ma Wing Shing's original works include "A Man Called Hero," also with Ekin Cheng, Kristy Yeung, and Shu Qi (as my late friend Paul said, a 40 year-old virgin ninja still following Ekin around in the entire movie). This is the only one I know of so far, but interestingly, Ma Wing Shing did a graphic novel adaptation of Zhang Yi Mou's movie, "Hero" (Jet Li, Tony Leung, Maggie Cheung).
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